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52 Card Project 2021: Week 49: Gloves
For the most part, the collages that I've created this year for this project reflect whatever I've been thinking about that particular week. Sometimes it's just sort of a general over-arching theme. This one, however, stems from a specific incident that happened to me this week and I've been thinking about it ever since.
I have been increasingly worried about my personal safety in my neighborhood. Carjackings, sometimes quite violent, are up over 500% in the Twin Cities. This is not merely theoretical: they've happened a mere two blocks from my home. Here is a map depicting carjacking locations in Minneapolis in the past year:
Edited to add: a story in yesterday's Star Tribune: Two juveniles in a vehicle believed to have been stolen during an armed carjacking are dead following an early Thursday crash in northeast Minneapolis following a police pursuit.
So I've been thinking about this and reading safety tips. One of the things I've done is to stash a lot of stuff I used to carry in my purse in my pockets instead, so that if a fifteen-year-old decides to stick a gun in my face, I maybe have a chance of keeping a few essential items, even if I lose the car. I've separated my car key from the rest of my keys, and I've taken my e-reader out of my purse so I'm not bringing it with me on errands anymore.
Besides being stressful af, this is also frustratingly inconvenient. I have to check multiple locations to make sure I have everything, and yeah, I've dropped things because I'm continually taking things in and out of pockets.
I decided last week to go for a walk on the path around Lake Nokomis. Once out of the car, I was separately juggling my car key, my other keys, my phone, my iPod, and my bluetooth ear buds. About 3/4 of the way around the lake, I realized I had dropped one of my gloves as I was taking stuff in and out of my pockets. I had an appointment in about 45 minutes when I realized this, and I didn't have time to retrace my steps the two or three miles around. Argh, what to do? A bad idea to be caught without a pair of gloves in December in Minnesota. And I liked those gloves; I'd worn them for years.
I got in the car and drove around the lake, hoping I'd spot them on the path. But the path was out of the view of the road for the most part, and I didn't see them. I had just about decided to give up and go home, kissing the lost glove goodbye, when a certain stubbornness arose. I whipped the car around in a U-turn, heading back in the opposite direction, and I stopped to park the car on the lake parkway. Perhaps I could trot over to the path and look down it in both directions and spot the glove that way? If I stopped at five or six spots around the lake, perhaps I'd get lucky?
I headed to the path, and I saw a woman pushing a stroller. I recognized her; she'd passed me going in the opposite direction while I was on my walk. "Excuse me," I said, "I saw you earlier this morning, and I wanted to ask: did you happen to see a woman's black glove somewhere along the path? I dropped it somewhere on my way around the lake."
Her face lit up. "Why, yes! And not only did I see it, I picked it up. Here it is, in the basket of my stroller."
I was absolutely astounded. Understand, I passed probably thirty or forty people on my walk around the lake. What were the chances that the very first person I asked had not only seen the glove but picked it up?
I had been feeling so . . . I don't know. Depressed, I guess, at the thought of the rise in crime. Besides the inconvenience of not feeling safe carrying a purse, I hated the feeling of having to be always on the alert, and a little afraid, and suspicious of anyone coming toward me. It was such a relief to have an interaction with someone in my neighborhood that was about kindness, and connection, and civic responsibility (I imagine she'd picked it up to turn it in to the park's lost and found) and the universe moving in its strange way to return something lost to me.
Gloves
Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.
I have been increasingly worried about my personal safety in my neighborhood. Carjackings, sometimes quite violent, are up over 500% in the Twin Cities. This is not merely theoretical: they've happened a mere two blocks from my home. Here is a map depicting carjacking locations in Minneapolis in the past year:
Edited to add: a story in yesterday's Star Tribune: Two juveniles in a vehicle believed to have been stolen during an armed carjacking are dead following an early Thursday crash in northeast Minneapolis following a police pursuit.
So I've been thinking about this and reading safety tips. One of the things I've done is to stash a lot of stuff I used to carry in my purse in my pockets instead, so that if a fifteen-year-old decides to stick a gun in my face, I maybe have a chance of keeping a few essential items, even if I lose the car. I've separated my car key from the rest of my keys, and I've taken my e-reader out of my purse so I'm not bringing it with me on errands anymore.
Besides being stressful af, this is also frustratingly inconvenient. I have to check multiple locations to make sure I have everything, and yeah, I've dropped things because I'm continually taking things in and out of pockets.
I decided last week to go for a walk on the path around Lake Nokomis. Once out of the car, I was separately juggling my car key, my other keys, my phone, my iPod, and my bluetooth ear buds. About 3/4 of the way around the lake, I realized I had dropped one of my gloves as I was taking stuff in and out of my pockets. I had an appointment in about 45 minutes when I realized this, and I didn't have time to retrace my steps the two or three miles around. Argh, what to do? A bad idea to be caught without a pair of gloves in December in Minnesota. And I liked those gloves; I'd worn them for years.
I got in the car and drove around the lake, hoping I'd spot them on the path. But the path was out of the view of the road for the most part, and I didn't see them. I had just about decided to give up and go home, kissing the lost glove goodbye, when a certain stubbornness arose. I whipped the car around in a U-turn, heading back in the opposite direction, and I stopped to park the car on the lake parkway. Perhaps I could trot over to the path and look down it in both directions and spot the glove that way? If I stopped at five or six spots around the lake, perhaps I'd get lucky?
I headed to the path, and I saw a woman pushing a stroller. I recognized her; she'd passed me going in the opposite direction while I was on my walk. "Excuse me," I said, "I saw you earlier this morning, and I wanted to ask: did you happen to see a woman's black glove somewhere along the path? I dropped it somewhere on my way around the lake."
Her face lit up. "Why, yes! And not only did I see it, I picked it up. Here it is, in the basket of my stroller."
I was absolutely astounded. Understand, I passed probably thirty or forty people on my walk around the lake. What were the chances that the very first person I asked had not only seen the glove but picked it up?
I had been feeling so . . . I don't know. Depressed, I guess, at the thought of the rise in crime. Besides the inconvenience of not feeling safe carrying a purse, I hated the feeling of having to be always on the alert, and a little afraid, and suspicious of anyone coming toward me. It was such a relief to have an interaction with someone in my neighborhood that was about kindness, and connection, and civic responsibility (I imagine she'd picked it up to turn it in to the park's lost and found) and the universe moving in its strange way to return something lost to me.
Click here to read about the 52 card project and see the year's gallery.